Farming in Detroit becoming a reality?

[Gannon]

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about, Cub...empowering our citizenry. Teaching them how to sustain their lives...

[Gannon]

Oh Retroit, there you go again, wanting to fight over the OLD false-diametric.

It never was either/or...but you bought into it. Open your mind, your heart, even your soul...if you still have it.


There need not be any losers, but there certainly will NOT be just one winner at the top, not any longer.

[Hypestyles]

I don't have a problem with this plan. I think it is foolish to oppose it, especialy foolish of people working on gardens to oppose it. They should be glad that serious investment is being poured into urban agriculture, that dozens of blocks will be put back to use. That new jobs are being created. I doubt this is a "corporate takeover"... Hantz isn't taking over any existing farms. He is just adding much more production to the mix, and I don't think there is any lack of demand. 3/4 of Detroiters still leave the city weekly to go to the suburbs. What do they go there for? Meijer, Kroger, etc.

I do have trouble with selling the food in suburban markets. I think the food should be sold at existing markets in Detroit as well as liqour/corner stores. All corner stores need to do is make their shelves higher, and add the produce. Make it so they don't even have to manage it. The managing of the produce could be handled by the distributer. What we really need is Detroit's 900,000 residents [[maybe less) buying from their neighborhood markets, and not driving to the suburbs for any neccesities.

There is so much untapped demand for groceries in Detroit, as well as retail. Look at Downtown and midtown-- what is missing? There is everything, entertainment, restaurants, theatres, museums, culture... but not retail, not grocery. Why is that? Why is retail allergic to Detroit? We have to reverse this trend. Could corner liqour stores be transformed into corner grocery stores? Could these stores be anchors to neighborhood retail centers?

I hope these initiatives get up and running, and soon.. there's more than enough space for continued community farming and a handful of larger-scale operations.. City schools should have plots of land to work on with students for credit-- push curriculums in schools stressing agriculture, soil science, botany, forestry, urban planning, etc. Why not have fruit & vegetable farms, why not have forest preserves, why not have some bikes-only paths? Unfortunately, once the more cynical, jaded, and uneducated sorts in local leadership/activism get introduced to ideas like urban farming, shutting down depopulated neighborhoods, and "re-greening" in general, the tendency is to reflexively start accusations of suburban land-grab, or "They want to turn Detroit into a Plantation" which adds a totally unnecessary racialized spin to redevelopment efforts. Of course, if one is to look at this through the lens of African-American history, agrarian-based skill sets were common to the black community's ancestors but were generationally lost as the industrialization boom manifested. Maybe this needs to be revisited...

[Retroit]

Another disadvantage of greenhouses [[from the "No heat in the Belle Isle Conservatory" thread):

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...040#post107040

[[broken windows)